The typical military history presents a chronicle of battles and wars and the commanders and troops who fought them. This book takes a different approach. It presents battles and wars and people aplenty, but they are not its ultimate subjects. This book is about the turning points that not only make military history dynamic but crucial to the story of humanity and civilization. This book is about the decisions, acts, innovations, errors, ideas, successes, and failures that shaped the evolution of military art and science—strategy, tactics, and technology—and, in doing so, shaped the course of world history. Here are the 100 points—from the birth of warfare in the Battle of Megiddo, 1457 BC, to the ongoing evolution of military history on its newest battlefield, cyberspace—at which the path of the warrior decisively turned on its long journey to where we find ourselves today.

100 Turning Points in American History is the first in a series of books about the critical decisions, events, inventions, and discoveries that shaped our nation, our world, and our civilization. Each volume presents the stories of 100 decisions/events/ breakthroughs in chronological order and includes, as a special feature, a list of the “Top Ten” ranked in order of impact, with a discussion justifying the ranking. Each decision/event/breakthrough includes sidebar features (“boxes”) highlighting relevant key personalities. Each volume is illustrated with (public domain) photos, images and maps.

Their very names--Gettysburg, Waterloo, Stalingrad--evoke images of great triumph and equally great suffering, moments when history seemed to hang in the balance. Considered in relation to each other, such battles--and others of less immediate renown--offer insight into the changing nature of armed combat, advances in technology, shifts in strategy and thought, as well as altered geopolitical landscapes. The most significant military engagements in history define the very nature of war. In his newest book, Richard Overy plumbs over 3,000 years of history, from the Fall of Troy in 1200 BC to the Fall of Baghdad in 2003, to locate the 100 battles that he believes the most momentous. Arranged by themes such as leadership, innovation, deception, and courage under fire, Overy presents engaging essays on each battle that together provide a rich picture of how combat has changed through the ages, as well as highlighting what has remained consistent despite advances in technology. The battles covered here offer a wide geographic sweep, from ancient Greece to China, Constantinople to Moscow, North to South America, providing a picture of the dominant empires across time and context for comparison between various military cultures. From familiar engagements like Thermopylae (480 BC), Verdun (1916), and the Tet Offensive (1968) to lesser-studied battles such as Zama (202 BC), Arsuf (1191), and Navarino Bay (1827), Overy presents the key actors, choices, and contingencies, focusing on those details--sometimes overlooked--that decided the battle. The American victory at the Battle of Midway, for example, was determined by only ten bombs. It was, as Wellington said of Waterloo, a "near run thing." Rather than focusing on the question of victory or defeat, Overy examines what an engagement can tell us on a larger level about the history of warfare itself. New weapons and tactics can have a sudden impact on the outcome of a battle--but so too can leadership, or the effects of a clever deception, or raw courage. Overy offers a deft and visually captivating look at the engagements that have shaped the course of human history, and changed the face of warfare.

Military historian William R. Weir looks at the key developments in armoury, men, and strategies that forever changed the evolution of war. Weir analyses the evolving interrelationships between these developments to give readers a thorough picture of this fascinating and important subject. Here are fifty turning points that radically changed the face of warfare and, ultimately, the course of history. From the development of basic weapons using wood or bronze to the advent of Smart Weapons, this is the definitve guide.

In this gripping new look at the 20th century's most crucial conflict, historian Bell analyzes 12 unique turning points that determined the character and the ultimate outcome of the Second World War.

American Military History provides the United States Army-in particular, its young officers, NCOs, and cadets-with a comprehensive but brief account of its past. The Center of Military History first published this work in 1956 as a textbook for senior ROTC courses. Since then it has gone through a number of updates and revisions, but the primary intent has remained the same. Support for military history education has always been a principal mission of the Center, and this new edition of an invaluable history furthers that purpose. The history of an active organization tends to expand rapidly as the organization grows larger and more complex. The period since the Vietnam War, at which point the most recent edition ended, has been a significant one for the Army, a busy period of expanding roles and missions and of fundamental organizational changes. In particular, the explosion of missions and deployments since 11 September 2001 has necessitated the creation of additional, open-ended chapters in the story of the U.S. Army in action. This first volume covers the Army's history from its birth in 1775 to the eve of World War I. By 1917, the United States was already a world power. The Army had sent large expeditionary forces beyond the American hemisphere, and at the beginning of the new century Secretary of War Elihu Root had proposed changes and reforms that within a generation would shape the Army of the future. But world war-global war-was still to come. The second volume of this new edition will take up that story and extend it into the twenty-first century and the early years of the war on terrorism and includes an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009.

Urban Battlefields: Lessons Learned from World War II to the Modern Era offers a detailed study of the complexities of urban operations, demonstrating through historical conflicts their key features, the various weapons and tactics employed by both sides, and the factors that contributed to success or failure. Urban operations are a relatively recent phenomenon and an increasingly prominent feature of today’s operational environment, typified by on-going fighting in Syria and Iraq. Here, Gregory Fremont-Barnes has enlisted ten experts to examine the key elements that characterize this particularly costly and difficult method of fighting by focusing on notable examples across the modern era. He covers their nineteenth-century roots, and follows with case studies ranging from major conventional formations to counterinsurgency and civil resistance. The contributors analyze the distinct features of urban warfare, which separate it from fighting in open areas, particularly the three-dimensional nature of the operating environment. These include: the restricted fields of fire and view; the substantial advantages conferred on the defender as a result of concealed positions and ubiquitous cover; the often- abundant presence of subterranean features including cellars, tunnels, and drainage and sewer systems; and the recurrent problems imposed by snipers holding up the progress of troops many times their number. Further, the authors consider how the presence of civilians may influence the rules of engagement and also may provide an advantage to the defender. Urban Battlefields illustrates why warfare in metropolises can be protracted and costly. It also illustrates why modest numbers of soldiers, militia, or insurgents with nothing more than shoulder-borne anti-tank weapons or ground-to-air missile systems, small arms, and improvised explosive devices can drastically reduce the effectiveness of much better disciplined, trained, and armed adversaries. Furthermore, it explains how those short-term advantages can be neutralized and ultimately overcome.